Louder Than Words
by Otaku Raven
Summary: Justin reflects on how Brian’s sleeping habits have reflected their relationship over the years.


Disclaimer - sigh Do I have to? Fine. They aren't mine. Trust me, if they were, I'd find better things to do with them than write fanfiction.

Title – Louder Than Words

Rating – PG-13

Summary – Justin reflects on how Brian's sleeping habits have reflected their relationship over the years.

Warnings – Spoilers up to 409

Louder Than Words

The first night he wouldn't touch me.

Scratch that.

The first month he wouldn't touch me.

He'd let me come over, he'd fuck me senseless and then turn away from me to sleep. I had tried several times to curl around him but he would always brush me off even in his sleep and I would stop my attempts at contact for fear of waking him and being thrown onto the couch or out of the loft all together. I mean, it was bad enough that he hardly wanted to acknowledge my presence after we'd fucked but at least I could feel the heat from his body next to mine. On those rare mornings when he did roll over and ended up cuddling into me I would close my eyes and just try to capture the feeling before he seemed to snap out of it and would jerk himself away from me with an agitated groan.

He was never particularly nasty to me on those nights or mornings, he just seemed cranky that he was forced to share his bed with someone who he constantly tried to rebuff and yet somehow always ended up taking home.

I would try to wake up early some days to make breakfast or at least coffee for him but he always seemed to wake up before I was able to complete my task and would end up dragging me into the shower with him.

Not that I necessarily minded – I just wanted to do nice things for him. I wanted to make him feel good. I wanted to try and show him (since words seemed to have little effect) how much he had come to mean to me and that he wasn't some stupid, fleeting, teenage crush.

Nothing seemed to work but I found ways around it.

I would drop everything and get his order right away when he came in the diner.

I would touch him as much as I could before he would pin my wrists to the bed.

I would trace patterns into the air above his naked back as he slept.

Then things started to change and Brian seemed to tolerate me more. He would kiss and touch me just a little longer before immobilizing me with his body and pushing himself into me. The sex itself would also last longer and would generally be more satisfying. Not to say that sex with Brian wasn't a religious experience to begin with, it was just that much better when he would slow things down just a little and let me be with him longer before he would go to sleep.

However, he had stopped sleeping facing away from me unless he was in a particularly nasty mood. Now he tended to sleep on his back and wouldn't object if I curled up against his side – my knees bent and my arms around my waist with the tip of my nose just grazing his bare shoulder.

He was more affectionate with me now as well. He let me feed him ice cream. He would occasionally ignore the hot guys trying to steal him away from me as we danced at Babylon. He even made out with me on Michael's couch during the slideshow of he and David's trip to Paris.

Then it happened for the first time.

It was the night I confronted Chris Hobbes outside of Woody's and outed him like the fucker he is in front of all his admirers. Just after 2 A.M. when Brian and I stumbled back to the loft, slightly intoxicated and ready to fuck and go to bed it happened, something changed. I smiled as Brian shoved me down on the bed and sighed into his mouth as his lips touched mine and I remember something about his kiss seeming different – and it wasn't just in his lips. His hands, his arms, his legs, his chest – everything seemed different that night. Stronger yet more gentle than ever before.

Later as I lie content on my back waiting for sleep to take me I felt his arm come to rest across my stomach. My heart skipped a beat and as I turned to look at his closed eyes I felt his fingers softly tickle my skin as he if was assuring me that he wasn't yet asleep and that his affection was a conscious effort.

I didn't know if he did it because he was finally starting to get comfortable with his feelings for me, if he was trying to protect me, or because he just felt like doing it.

Whatever the reason, I didn't care, and I slept better that night than I ever had in my entire life.

Brian started touching me like that almost every night I stayed over. Just a small connection between us as we slept and sometimes I thought I could die I was so happy.

I guess I should be more careful about what I wish for.

After the attack I went from Brian's warm, comforting bed and caresses to the cold and unfamiliar hospital cot. I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night with no one to console me except for the nurse's who would sometimes come in if I had screamed loud enough. I would cry into my pillow and call out for Brian as I clutched the white mass of fabric that matched the color of my skin. Every night I stayed in the hospital I cried for him. The nurse's would come and gently brush my hair back and I hated the feeling of their soft, feminine hands and the small smile of pity they would give me when I pleaded with them to let me see Brian. Of course he never came and I became so determined to leave so that I could find him that even my mother was shocked when the doctor told her that they were releasing me.

I hadn't even been home one night before I went out looking for him.

Of course he seemed to have turned into an entirely different person. I could smell the alcohol on his breath every time I saw him, or rather every time he let me see him. My brain played cruel jokes on me and told me both to seek out his tentative touch and to recoil from it. Being back in his bed for the first time was nerve-wracking. He looked as scared as I did as he leaned in to kiss me his lips felt so good on my skin that I thought I could handle having him inside me like I was aching for. God, I wanted him and yet I didn't want him to touch me.

He told me it was all right and that everything would work out but in my mind all I could do was scream at him.

I ended up crying into my hands as he rubbed gentle circles on my back.

Eventually things started to return to some state of normalcy. I began feeling secure around him and others and he seemed more dedicated to me than he ever had before. The night after he helped me walk down the bustle of Liberty Avenue for the first time since the attack his arm returned to my stomach and after a couple of nights he would scoot closer and rest his chin on top of my head after he kissing my temple. I would always seek his hand out with my own and entertain our fingers on my belly and never once did he object.

Somewhere along the line however, that stopped be enough.

I suppose I got greedy or jealous or possessive or maybe a combination of all three but whatever I turned into stopped being so well satisfied with him. I starting wanting something more. I starting wanting what all the books and magazines and movies told me to want. I started wanting what a young violinist seemed to offer. Suddenly nothing he did seemed like enough.

When I told him I wanted more he mocked me, said I was a dreamy-eyed school boy, and he stopped holding me at night and slept facing away from me like he had when we first meet.

Except the night before the Rage party at Babylon. I came home to him lost, angry and confused after Ethan threw me out and crawled under the covers as he pulled them back for me. As soon as I settled in he spooned up against my back and softly stroked my arm with the tips of his fingers. I stayed awake all night just feeling the steady flow of his warm breath on my back of my neck and fighting the moisture in my eyes and the knowledge that it would be the last time unless a miracle happened.

Of course in the miracle's stead I got him fucking Rage in the backroom and a musician who seemed able to truly dedicate himself to me.

So I left Brian.

The first night with Ethan I thought I was going to be sick. His arms felt too heavy and too warm around me and his bed felt too lumpy and hard and all I could think about was wanting to run back to the loft and back to Brian.

But I didn't. I remained faithful to Ethan and smiled as he dressed me with the words I'd yearned to hear from Brian's lips. I worked though all of my feelings of regret over Brian and just when I really started thinking that life with Ethan could turn out all right after all the fucker went and cheated on me. I have never in my life felt angrier and yet so fucking crushed. It was like I had given up on Brian for nothing. Like I had walked away from the love of my life for no reason. Like he was right all along and I was a pathetic dreamy-eyed school boy.

Like I had made the biggest fucking mistake of my pathetic, stupid life.

The next month living with Daphne was spent in agony. I would lie in my twin bed in our small apartment wide awake for hours and think only of him. I constantly wondered what or who he was doing and if he was getting along all right. I closed my eyes and tried to image the warmth of his body next to me. I would have wonderful dreams of being with him only to wake up alone.

All this for a man who had refused to admit he loved or even cared about me, who had broken my heart and who had not so long ago convinced Ethan to go on with his career despite the piece of blonde, boy ass that he had at home.

It is fucking disgusting how much I love him.

So I reverted to what got his attention in the first place only this time I was far more confident.

A few weeks of flirting, both at Babylon and at Vanguard, a determined kiss in the board room and a passionate and tender make-up session in his office and I was back in his life, back in his bed and back where I belonged.

That first night we must have fucked six times before pure exhaustion forced up to stop and as we settled down I felt one of his arms go around my shoulders while the other went around my waist as he pulled me towards his chest and kissed my forehead. He didn't say anything and he really didn't need to. I knew he had missed me and this was his way of welcoming me back.

I kissed his chest and slipped an arm up and around his neck as he fell asleep.

Things were so good. Even through all the shit with Stockwell and him losing his job and the impending threat of having to sell the loft things were good. Brian managed to get his firm started and life for him was simply amazing.

He is so amazing and I was thrilled to be by his side again.

Then Cody came with a fucking butcher knife and sliced open all my repressed feelings and emotions towards what happened to me on the night of my prom. I know in my heart I really can't blame Cody for what happened and the changes that came over me because those feelings needed to be addressed, but Jesus everything became so tense with me.

I was so bitter at everyone.

Daphne, my mom, Brian – everyone.

No one understood what the hell I was going though and Cody offered me my salvation.

Brian stood by my side but he couldn't hide the concern that would flash in his eyes every time I headed out to meet with the posse. He couldn't understand why this was so important to me and fuck, I wanted him too – I needed him too.

But he just couldn't.

And that night as I forced the gun into Hobbes' mouth, looking down into his tear filled eyes, I couldn't understand it either.

So I walked away and tried to put my life back in order.

And then Vic died and Brian was diagnosed with cancer and he shut me out of his life.

Without any type of logical explanation he threw me out onto the street and refused to see me. He wouldn't return my calls, he would ignore me on the street if we happened to run into each other. He could have been dead and I never would have known. I felt like I had back when I was 17 and was trying so hard to crack his code and get into him only to be shut out like I was nothing.

He made me feel like I was nothing and for a moment I tried to make myself believe that I could accept it. That I could give up on him the way he appeared to have given up on me. But that fucking tug in my heart refused to let that happen.

So I confronted him on his way home, screamed at him, fed him chicken soup and then held his hand in silence until he finally broke down and fell apart in my arms. He wrapped his arms around me and I rubbed his convulsing back as he for the first time let himself be human in front of me. For nearly 20 minutes I cradled his weak frame until he lowered his head into my lap and became silent. Carefully I maneuvered myself onto my back on the mattress and with each movement I felt his grip on me become tighter.

I sighed and ran my fingers through his hair as he nuzzled into my stomach and fell into a deep sleep. I hated what was happening to him and that there was nothing I could do to stop it but more than that I hated him for keeping it from me. I hated that he had to do this on his own and I hated that he thought I would abandon him because his physical body was no longer the epitome of perfection.

I have never hated and loved something so much.

But it's all worth it.

I know everyone thinks I'm crazy for putting up with him but how can they understand that despite all his eccentricities it's all worth it? That he's all worth it? That all the fights, all the problems, all the sorrow, all the uncertainly and all the exploration get lost in the truth, the passion, the honesty, the undeniable love and the warmth of his arms.

****

The End


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